Saturday, September 18, 2010

I'm in the process of painting up my Harald Deathwolf mini (using the Canis model) and whipped out the camera for some quick step-by-steps, the first of which being a 3 step Frostblade.

The blade has been based Boltgun Metal (I left the blade portion unwashed, unlike the rest of the haft).

Step 1: Skull White What you see above is the result of two to three light drybrushes of white. I'm going for a frosted look, due to the name of the weapon, so the drybrushes are very light.

I do want there to be a bluish hue, despite that I know that frosted metal doesn't necessarily take on a blue color in real life.

Step 2: Asurmen Blue

Unlike with the method I use in standard power weapons, I do not dowse/flood the blade. The application is light; enough to make it blue and fill in cracks/crevices.

Step 3: Skull White

To finish off, I apply one or two more light drybrushes of white. This should be even lighter than the first step, like "dusting" the blade. I normally don't drybrush after a wash, as it tends to look grainy, but in this case I want that grainy look.

Tell me what you think. Do you have a method you like to depict Frostblades? Toss it in the comments, and I might post a link to it. :)

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Sorry for the very infrequent posts, work's been hell lately. Up on the bench, an Ultramarines sergeant!

Step 1: Mordian Blue

Step 2: Ultramarines BlueStep 3: Ice Blue Things should look overly bright and garish at this point. If you know my style, you'll know that this is when you hit it with a wash to bring the colors down a bit.

Step 4: Asurmen Blue wash I tried using Badab Black, but man does that destroy any kind of blue you had going for it.

Step 5: Mechrite Red For the helm.

Step 6: Blood RedStep 7: Fiery Orange I just found out that Fiery Orange is discontinued. Blazing Orange should be a good substitute, though it might not be as bright ... I'll have to order some and look into it.

Step 8: Devlan Mud washStep 9: Shining GoldStep 10: Mithril Silver I like to drybrush some silver over the gold as a small highlight, then follow with mud. However in this case, we're going to work up the leahter, bone,cloth and parchment first, as there's a mud step in those processes too...

Step 11: Dheneb Stone Step 1 of all bone, cloth and parchments.

Step 12: Vermin Brown Basecoat for the leather bits.

Step 13: Bronzed Flesh Another discontinued color, unfortunately. Before stumbling upon this, I used to use a 1:1 mix of Bleached Bone and Vermin Brown for this same step. This is a highlight for the leather bits.

Step 14: Devlan Mud Applied as the finishing touch on the leathers as well as the gold. This is also step 2 in the bone, cloth and parchment process.

Step 15: Bleached Bone Bringing back the mid-tones of the bone, cloth and parchments, this is step 3 in that process.

Step 16: Skull White This is the final highlight (though not the last step) on the bone, cloth and parchments. Try to stay near edges, or high raised areas.

Step 17: Gryphonne Sepia This is the final step on the bone, cloth and parchment process. This was applied close to where the Devlan Mud still showed (and on skull temples).

Step 18: Boltgun MetalStep 19: Charadon Granite This is for the chainsword casing as well as the base (he'll be on an urban road like my Imperial Guard).

Step 20: Fortress Grey This is the highlight for the chainsword casing.

Step 21: Codex Grey It's hard to see in the pic, but this is stipled/drybrushed on the base to bring out some of the texture.

Step 22: Badab Black For the Boltgun Metal bits, as well as the chainsword casing. The base will be washed in mud.

Step 23: Scorpion Green Eye lenses.

Step 24: Skull White Squad markings.

Step 25: Asurmen Blue This was used to bring out some detail on the embossed shoulder markings (fig is from AoBR).

Step 26: Iyanden Darksun This makes for great street paint.

Step 27: Devlan Mud To finish off the base. Well, there we have it. It's a quick method for the boys in blue (especially when you're not dealing with all the extra steps the sarg takes) that has served me well so far. Let me know what you think.